Macpherson: The other filibuster

Don Macpherson, The Gazette06.03.2013

Don Macpherson

Quebec anglos may applaud the Liberal official opposition in the National Assembly if its stalling tactics prevent the adoption of the Marois government’s anti-English Bill 14, Don Macpherson writes.Jacques Boissinot
/ The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — Whether you think a filibuster is heroic or undemocratic may depend on what you think of the measure whose adoption is being systematically obstructed by a minority of legislators.

So Quebec anglos may applaud the Liberal official opposition in the National Assembly if its stalling tactics prevent the adoption of the Marois government’s anti-English Bill 14, which has received approval in principle from a majority of MNAs representing a majority in the electorate.

The vote of 67 to 42 to adopt the language legislation in principle followed a debate that was lopsided in the opposite direction. Of the 50 Liberal MNAs, 39 exercised their right to speak in the debate, to six for the ruling Parti Québécois, four for the Coalition Avenir Québec and one for Québec solidaire. As a result, the debate took a month.

But the filibuster against Bill 14 isn’t the only one the Liberals are waging. And few people outside their own party are likely to believe that their other filibuster is motivated by anything but self-interest, personal as well as partisan.

It’s against a PQ government bill to abolish the much-criticized “transition allowance,” or severance pay, for MNAs who resign their seats without a valid reason. The allowance gives the quitters up to a year’s salary, even if they have already lined up new jobs.

That’s on top of their pensions, and the more than $600,000 in public funds it costs for each byelection to replace them.

Since the late 1970s, voluntary resignations from the Assembly, often due to frustrated personal ambitions, have become more common.

The leaders of the three largest parties in the Assembly have already collected the allowance when they temporarily quit active politics.

Monique Jérôme-Forget, who boasted of her strict control of public finances as Treasury Board chair in the former Charest government, cashed in when she retired only four months after being elected to a new term in 2008.

She was beaten to the cashier’s wicket by a month, however, by Mario Dumont, former leader of Action démocratique du Québec. Dumont’s allowance paid him more to quit when he did than he would have earned had he sat in the Assembly for another year. (That was because his allowance was based on his total salary in the previous 12 months, during which he was paid more as leader of the official opposition in the previous legislature.)

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard Drainville, told the Assembly that more people have called his riding office to congratulate him on the bill than have called about any other issue in his six years as an MNA.

The bill is supported by the CAQ, which holds the balance of power in the Assembly.

The Liberals, however, are filibustering against it. In the debate on approval in principle through last Thursday, there had been one PQ speaker (the sponsor, Drainville), one for the CAQ — and 26 Liberals.

Robert Dutil, the Liberal critic for democratic institutions, complained that the bill puts MNAs in a conflict of interest, since they would be voting on a benefit they are eligible to receive. Dutil also accused the PQ government of wanting to discourage its own MNAs from resigning and thereby jeopardizing its survival.

What he didn’t mention in the Assembly, however, is that the bill would also make it harder for Liberal leader Philippe Couillard to persuade one of his party’s MNAs to give up a safe seat if Couillard wanted to enter the Assembly in a byelection.

The Liberals’ arguments are unconvincing.

The government is already in the minority in the Assembly, at the mercy of the Liberals and the CAQ.

And the bill puts MNAs in a conflict of interest only if they oppose it — as the Liberals are doing, with another filibuster that has what appear to be less noble motives than the first.

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